Food History

I promised this to Jenny . It is from my late cousin Edith. I miss Edith. She came out to Australia as a refugee in 1938. She bequeathed me copies of all her family cake recipes and some fabulous stories to accompany them. You’ll see them from time to time when I get nostalgic. She was an important part of my life for many years.

Edith didn’t actually make strudel - she told me how her mother made it though, so this technique is from a Hungarian-Viennese Jewish family who made it this way just over eighty years ago. I have no recipe for the dough proper, though Edith said her mother put the flour in a bowl and gradually worked the other ingredients in the centre of the well in the flour. When it was a smooth lump, she then proceeded to the steps below. (My memory told me it was an egg-based dough, but I was confusing it with lokshen - strudel dough is mainly flour, with some melted butter, a bit of warm water, and maybe a squeeze of lemon juice or some salt.)

Edith’s mother would make a strudel dough then lock herself in the kitchen. The dough eventually became rather like a filo dough - that’s how much you have to stretch it. One of the tricks is to keep it cool while you work it - I suspect that’s why she used a tablecloth. Edith said her mother was very nervous about the whole thing, which is why she locked the door - to keep children out.

Once she was safely locked in the kitchen with her small lump of strudel dough, Edith’s mother would flour the big white tablecloth which was, of course, spread on the very large kitchen table. The dough was stretched out carefully and painstakingly over the tablecloth using the knuckles to stretch and pull it (though other recipes talk about starting with a rolling pin then moving to stretching using thumbs and first fingers). When the dough was stretched very, very evenly and very, very, very thin and actually hung over the edges of the big table (occasional holes were not a problem), Edith’s mother would take a pair of kitchen scissors and snip the too-thick portions from each edge. Then she took melted butter and gently brush the full table-length of dough. After this she lightly scattered breadcrumbs over the entire length. Then it was ready to cook with.